Palenchuk noted that the details of the SBU operation to undermine the bridge will be known subsequently, emphasizing that the Crimean bridge, like all other similar objects, is a legal military purpose for Ukraine.
“Ukraine has never refused that these objects, as the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky noted, here is superfluous. And yes, each such case undermines not only the logistics abilities of Russians, but also faith in their impunity,” he said.
To the question of how important the SBU operation has for Ukraine, the military emphasized that we are talking about logistics and other possibilities of the bridge.
“This should complicate a logistics message with temporarily occupied Crimea. The so-called Crimean bridge still performed this function, although after the last attack he lost some logistics capabilities according to the railway message. Let's hope that it will lose some other opportunities. But the ideological component, both in this war and relatively specifically this bridge, remains very large and is of great importance,” Pletenchuk emphasized.
Context
The bridge across the Kerch Strait connecting the Crimea and the Russian Federation, the aggressor country began to build a year after the occupation of the peninsula in 2015. The road bridge was opened in 2018, railway – in 2019–2020.
During a full -scale war on the Crimean bridge, explosions occurred twice. The first is October 8, 2022. The railway track of the bridge was damaged and several spans of its automobile part were destroyed. The second explosion occurred on July 17, 2023. As a result of the incident, two flights of bridges were seriously damaged. At the attacks on the bridge stood Ukrainian special services.
In the summer of 2023, Russian propaganda informed about Installation of bonal barriers near Crimean bridge.
In March 2024, the head of the SBU Vasily Malyuk said that Ukraine has a potential for the complete destruction of the Crimean bridge, but Russia does not use it to move weapons and ammunition. According to the head of the military intelligence of Ukraine Kirill Budanov, the long -range ATACMS missiles, which the United States transferred to Ukraine, can destroy the bridge, “the question is only in their quantity.”
At the beginning of the summer of 2024, the partisan movement of Atesh reported that Russian invaders began to strengthen the protection of the Crimean bridge: they Old barges put along it And they threw additional air defense systems into the Kerch area. In August, it became known about the construction near the bridge of an unknown object, similar to the bridge. Journalists suggested that the new structure is intended to increase the protection of the bridge from potential attacks.
On June 3, the SBU conducted a new unique special operation and for the third time struck the Crimean bridge – this time under water, laying explosives at the bottom level. The Ukrainian special service said that the underwater supports of the support of the bridge were badly damaged and now it is actually in disrepair.
